25% is still a significant increase at one time.
And actually the cost of DVDs HAS gone up,
Can you document that? I don't doubt you, but I haven't noticed any increase in DVD prices, every new release is usually between $15 and $20 at Walmart or Target and then comes down in a couple months - these prices have been pretty consistent for several years.
and the cost of postage has gone up over 25% since the company started,
However, this is not the first price increase that they have had.
and the cost of their licensing for the streaming content has nearly quadrupled in the last year.
I'll grant them that, but they need to do a better job explaining this and how it has increased their cost per subscriber.
I've been on the 3 movies at a time for years and I guess my cost went up 25%. I really don't care because it's just not that much money, but I can see why a lot of people do care.
25% is large as a percentage, but it’s 4 bucks. It’s the price of 1 crappy fastfood lunch, and only if you live entirely on the value menu.
You just documented it yourself. Every new release is between $15 and $20 at Target, 3 years ago they were mostly $12.99 and $13.99. And that’s OUR price, Netflix is a renter, they legally can’t be buying those for rent (just look at the blurb in the warning screen when you put a DVD in), they have to buy the rental license DVDs which are generally 3 to 5 times as much as we pay. Plus of course they’ve got the BluRay business, which generally run $5 to $10 more than DVD (for us, again multiply by 3 to 5 for rentals).
Again with the postage Netflix has probably had a LARGER increase. Because they’re shipping DVDs their envelopes are a non-standard size, their base postage is more. Now they do their own sorting to get the bulk rate going out, but they don’t get bulk rate on the return.
I don’t see why Netflix should have to explain that. It’s relatively easy to find information that’s been out for MONTHS before they announced the price hike that their streaming license fees went from around $700 million a year to over $2.5 billion. Anybody using the streaming service is on the internet, and so is this information. Anybody that can’t see how that increased Netflix’s cost per subscriber won’t pay attention if Netflix tells them.
I know there’s plenty of folks with tight money situations, but even in this time period $4 a month just isn’t that much money. It’s a touch over a gallon of gas. People just like to complain, there was an article that hit FR this weekend about the changes in society we’re seeing from the internet, about half their list can be seen in the discussions about Netflix’s rather minor price hike.